From, Tristan
by J-Marine.The.Dragon
Summary: Ever since Garret had come to the Western chapter house, Tristan would disappear for around an hour every seventeenth of the month. But now Tristan is... not available. And until he wakes up, it's Garret's responsibility to make the walk through the cemetery. After all, someone has to visit Tristan's late partner. (LEGION SPOILERS) Now with sequel that I wasn't planning on writing.
1. (Sorry he Couldn't Make it Today)

**A/N: Well, Legion has come, and with it lots of pain and another cliffhanger, so I wrote this, not to ease the pain, but to pass the time. This actually might make the pain worse, come to think about it. But that's why I marked this as angst and not humor. I posted a similar version of this on Tumblr, so if you see something that looks like this floating around then you have an explanation. I'm not a thief. Promise.**

 **Spoilers for books up to Legion, so finish that before you read. No one wants spoilers.**

 **Discailmer: Don't own, don't profit. Though that would be _very_ cool, I will not lie.**

Carl St. Caecilius was one of the older soldiers in the Western chapter house. That being said, he was still only 33. Garret personally knew him as the guy who hated scorpions more than Dragons. But according to everyone else, he was the guy who could get a can of beer at any given time, in any given place. After what Garret had done, betraying St. George, being partially responsible for the Patriarch's death, showing up with a bunch of dragons, he didn't expect Carl to give in to his request.

Surprisingly enough, he didn't even ask him questions.

"I sometimes forget that you've never lost a partner before, Sebastian," He said as he passed him one fifteen minutes after the request. "Don't start grieving for him yet, though. Tristan's still with us.

Garret nodded and pocketed it wordlessly. It's wasn't a secret that he was spending all of his spare time at his former partner's side. He wouldn't let him be alone when he woke up. But there was something else to take care of until then, so when he passed the infirmary he didn't go in.

If it were Tristan walking to their location instead of Garret, it would have taken fifteen minutes, tops. It would be such a familiar sight, the white crosses passing in his sight. Garret didn't know exactly where he had to go as he made his way further into the cemetery. He had only been there for three years, but the body count was already so high. The newest graves were only two days old.

Garret shook himself and kept walking until he found what he was looking for. In the rows white crosses was a gravestone shaped like the Star of David. One of around twenty since the chapter house was established in 1905. He knelt by it and sure enough, it was the one that he was looking for. _Marcus Jacob Abendana, 1992-2013._

Garret swallowed thickly and stood again.

"Hi," He whispered hoarsely. "You… you don't know me. I don't know you, really, we've never met. But I've heard stories, and I'm sure Tristan has mentioned me a few times. He visits you, like clockwork, by the way. But if you can hear me wherever you are then you most certainly know that. I'm— I was… I was Tristan's partner after you."

He lapsed into silence, almost expecting a response.

"You were probably expecting him."

The gravestone remained silent and Garret sighed.

"Well, this month has been hectic. I wasn't here for the most part, but Talon attacked two days ago. They have clones now, attacked all of the chapter houses. Ours made it out. Obviously. Don't know about anyone else, but _we_ did. And... allied with dragons. They're good, don't worry, they're breakaways from Talon. Even Angelo admitted they did good, and he's… well, _Angelo_. Don't know how well you knew him. And he was on painkillers when he said that, that might have... yeah."

The gravestone didn't respond. Garret closed his eyes.

"You're probably wondering why Tristan's not here. He's supposed to be here. He would want to be here." Garret took a shaking breath and looked away. "Marc, it's bad. If you saw him… he looks like he's _dead_. I didn't think I would outlive him, I never thought… He wasn't supposed to... Shit, this is why Tristan would come back crying half of the time, isn't it?"

The gravestone hadn't changed and Garret angrily wiped away tears. Back when he had just learned where Tristan went off to every seventeenth of the month, Tristan made him promise not to visit his gravestone if he was to die before Garret. To move on. Do what Tristan couldn't in a thousand years. Garret promised, but when the possibility truly faced him, when Tristan lay still as death in the infirmary, it was impossible to keep.

"I've done a shitty job replacing you, you could've done so much better if you had lived. I think I've taken a good five years off of his life through stupidity alone, and that's even if he does... if he wakes up."

The gravestone didn't respond.

"You can't have him, okay? Not yet. He—" Garret's lip trembled. "He still misses you, Marc. He really, really misses you. It's been three years and it hasn't gone away, not entirely. I think he sometimes still expects you to be there with him, but he's here and you're there. And we still need him up here, I still—" No one was around and he let tears spill down his face. "Don't take him yet. Please."

"The gravestone offered nothing.

"I'm sorry, Marc."

Silent.

Garret knelt next to Marc's gravestone and cracked open the beer. Marc had introduced Tristan to alcohol when they were both seventeen, so it only felt right to share it with him. One former partner to another. He poured most of it onto the ground and drank the rest.

A million years ago, he and Tristan went to a karaoke bar, where the beer tasted like fire. He shared his beer with Marc and it tasted like ashes.

 **A/N: Sorry for the sad. Not really. Please review if you can, it would make my day!**


	2. (Sorry it's Been so Long)

He was drowning.

Tristan clawed at his throat as the red water spilled around him, warm on his chest and pounding against his arms. He coughed and drew in more of the water, scrambling against the walls of the red-stained room. He didn't know where he was, he didn't _care_ where he was, he couldn't breathe, he was—

Door. There was a door. Tristan tried for the knob, which slipped out of his grip as he became more desperate, so much water, so much red, so much _blood,_ staining his chest and arms, dripping into his eyes, filling his lungs as it rushed around him. He slammed his weight against it in one last fit of desperation and it caved open, letting him escape.

Bright sunlight and silence. Tristan furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at himself. He was dry again, and when he turned around there wasn't a door. The room had just disappeared. He looked around, not quite sure where he was or what was going on.

Downtown Kandahar. Tristan slowly turned in a circle as he took in his new sight. Already the place he had been before was fuzzy in his mind compared to his hometown. He was on one of the streets he grew up on, before he knew what the Order was. And somehow, he remembered everything about it in perfect clarity.

Which was why he knew that it had never been so empty before. There wasn't a single person in sight, there were no sounds from inside the buildings. Everything was still.

"Hello?" Tristan cautiously walked along the road, uneven pavement under thin shoes felt with every step but the sun beating down on him unable to touch his skin. Silence responded to him.

"Is anyone here?" He tried again.

"Heyo."

Tristan jumped and whirled around towards the voice. He knew that voice, he was _sure_ he knew that voice. Who it belonged to slipped just out of reach, but he realized that it didn't matter. No one was there. He was sure there had been a voice. But maybe his ears were just playing tricks on him.

"Over here."

The voice echoed around him, above him, Tristan couldn't see anyone but himself. That in itself wasn't right, Kandahar was always busy, _always._ Was the voice responsible for making everyone leave?

"Tristan!"

He turned again, a growl in his throat and anger in his eyes, something was playing games with him, he _knew_ that voice, he—

Oh.

"Heyo. Miss me much, Spices?" Marcus Jacob Abendana asked, a slightly teasing grin over his face. And as Tristan stared dumbfounded at the man, his partner, a person he _knew_ had gone, he realized that in the three years apart he hadn't changed a bit. He had the same face, the burn scar of his jawbone, the spray of freckles Tristan had envied… he didn't have any of the wounds he was buried with. He was exactly how Tristan remembered him. But it couldn't be him, Marc was gone, he saw him die on the mountain, burned by the dragon fire meant for him.

All at once, the shock faded, and he realized that his partner, his friend since he was twelve was standing in front of him, grinning like he didn't know what had happened. And Tristan wanted to laugh and and embrace him with no intention of letting him go, ask for help, cry over their loss, scream and rage at Marc for leaving him like that. He wanted…

"I'm sorry," Tristan breathed. "It should've been me."

Marc shook his head and walked towards him, grasping his arm. His teasing grin melted into something softer, the smile that he would give Tristan when he was frustrated or upset because it would make him feel better. According to Marc, it was part of the job description because he was the older one. Tristan of course resented that, right up until his death. Until he'd give anything for that feeling again.

"I don't regret my choice, Spices."

"I…" Tristan looked around at the buildings, a smile finally coming to his face. It felt so good to be back in his hometown, to be back with his partner. A slight twinge to the back of his head told him that he was missing… _something…_ but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything as long as he could stay. As long as he had his partner back everything was good.

The twinge wasn't going away.

"Am… am I dead?" The smile faded slightly as the words slipped out without thought. He didn't remember dying. The last thing he remembered was… he couldn't tell. And the twinge telling him he was missing something big wasn't going away.

Marc quirked his eyebrows and shrugged. "I don't know." He tugged Tristan's sleeve slightly and they started walking down the street, no particular place in mind. "Do you want to be?"

He started and looked over to Marc, whose earth brown eyes bored into his, demanding he avert his gaze and submit an answer. It was a gaze he only knew Marc able to achieve. Tristan swallowed thickly and focused on the skyline. Easy answer: of course he didn't. Who would, living was… _living._ It was something people generally wanted to do. But the twinge said otherwise. It didn't give him an answer or tell him _why,_ but it told him that he was wrong in that answer.

"I… I can't…"

"It's a simple question, Tristan." Marc squeezed his arm. "I won't judge."

"I…"

 _Garret._

Tristan inhaled shakily, but didn't feel the air in his lungs. He remembered. Marc was one of two. Garret Xavier Sebastian was his other partner, four years his junior, and _Garret_ best friend because he was alive when Marc wasn't. _Garret_ was the one he had trusted with his life and emotions and secrets, but _Garret_ stabbed him in the back andleft him alone. Again. Tristan never liked being alone.

"Maybe," He whispered. Marc was silent and Tristan risked a glance. The intenseness was gone. After three months of suffering alone, he didn't need it to make Tristan break. "It seems peaceful. No dragons or fighting or… or grief, or betrayal, or _guilt,_ and you might be there, and—" Tristan broke off. His cheeks were wet, and when he wiped away the tears they were red. "This is depressing."

Marc nodded. "Well, you've always been able to unburden to me, my young partner."

"Shut up." His heart wasn't really in it and he heard more than felt his voice crack.

They walked in silence for a while, the pavement under their feet turning somewhat even. Almost unnaturally so. Tristan was rather sure that the street he had been on a few minutes ago was nowhere close to where he was now, but he left it. He still knew where he was.

"You know, you have a lot to live for."

"We don't even know if I'm alive or dead yet."

Marc sighed softly and Tristan narrowed his eyes at him. He still looked eighteen, but for a moment there he felt so much older next to Tristan. More than the two months that separated them.

"That's not the point, Spices. If you turn out to be alive, you know that you won't be able to talk to me. At least, I won't be a able to respond. I know that you miss me, Tristan, because I miss you too, more than you know. But I'd rather my sacrifice not be in vain because you want to off yourself—"

"I'm not going to kill myself, Marc!" Tristan screeched and pulled away. Marc didn't react to the sudden movement, but raised an eyebrow. Tristan raised his back. One thing he could do better than his partner.

But… Marc did have a point. Tristan didn't want to leave him, he didn't want to be left alone, abandoned. Again. And part of him truly, desperately hoped that he was dead so he could stay. If he _was_ alive… he didn't know what to do. Because Marc _wasn't._ He couldn't talk to him like he was now if he turned out to be alive.

"I promise not to intentionally die. You died for me, I can't make that worth nothing," Tristan closed his eyes and opened them again to meet his partner's gaze. The brown he hadn't seem in three years stared back at him. "But why did you have to do that? Why did you have to leave me?"

"Tristan, I didn't want to live my life knowing I could have saved you. You're my partner, even now." Marc took a step forwards and pulled Tristan into a hug. "And I'm always, _always_ going to be with you, Tristan. Never forget that." Tristan nodded, but something was wrong again. Something… he couldn't place it. He didn't feel right. "I'm right along side you, even when you can't see."

Tristan nodded just as a sharp pain went through his chest. He gasped and dug his nails into Marc's back.

"And life is an awfully great thing, y'know," He continued, but it was faint. Too faint.

And all too quickly, Tristan knew what was happening.

"No, no, Marc, I'm not ready to leave, I— I can't leave you yet, please don't let me go—"

" _See you later, Spices_."

"Marc, _please!_ " Tristan gripped him tighter as his best friend dissolved into the air around him, which suddenly was too hard to breathe again. The sunlight turned white and the ground disappeared beneath him, the streets of Kandahar swallowed in the light. He fell, reaching out for a friend that was long since gone until he forced open his eyes and woke up.

He was in the infirmary. He could hear beeping and whirring machines around him and looked around. Garret was sleeping upright in a dingy hospital chair. And part of him wanted to wake him up and ask what had happened. Most of him couldn't care.

Tristan closed his eyes and sighed, pain of his injuries clouding everything except for the grief. His partner had died over three years ago, his body lay in the cemetery six feet underground. But it felt like he had lost him all over again.

"See you later, Marc."


End file.
